This is one of the oldest Canon zoom lens designs and it shows in its weight (790 g). On the other hand, construction is very solid, with very smooth separated rings for focal length and focus distance variation. The filter ring doesn't turn when focussing and the lens hood is built - in but a little bit short. The Canon New FD 80-200mm f/4 is a real sleeper, hiding in the shadow of the mighty New FD 80-200mm f/4 L lens. Its production numbers are much lower than those of the more popular New FD 70-210mm f/4 push and pull zoom lens. Still, the forgotten one has a lot going for it : image quality is competitive with prime lenses of its time, yet not as spectacular as the one of its L sibling but better than that of the 70-210 variant ; images are sharp and contrasty from wide open even though it's wise to close to f/5.6 (at 80 and 135 mm) or f/8 (at 200 mm) in order to obtain perfectly defined image borders and corners. Distorsion is well controlled and vignetting disappears by f/5.6. The lack of extra low dispersion glass produces (a still manageable amount of) chromatic aberration and purple fringing at the longer focal lengths but that is easily corrected in a Raw converter. The image quality doesn't falter at lower focus distances - the lens is near perfect for close focus (1 meter) and macro shots, with or without an achromatic close-up lens. Even nowadays, it is easy to understand why this lens was very expensive throughout its production time - it still holds its own if you're willing to correct its only shortcomings (chromatic aberrations) in postproduction.

Note that this lens exists in two versions : the nFD is slightly heavier and has a 58 mm filter diameter while the SSC version is slightly lighter with a 55 mm filter thread. Both share the same robust and solid built and optical construction. The antireflex coating seems to be slightly improved in the newer version but it shows mainly in the colours of the light reflections.